Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Pineapple tarts

The year of Tiger is just around the corner. To celebrate Chinese New Year my family usually prepares some tarts and cookies. One of my favorites is pineapple tarts. Well I'm not much into baking so usually it was my sister who made them and I was the one finishing them. This year I decided to bake some myself. However, since my daughter is so sticky, I showed my aunt how to do it and she was the one making these crumbly and addictive tarts.

Ingredients:Pineapple jam1 pineapple + some sugarSlide and grate pineapple. Dry the grated pineapple.Simmer it until the juice dry out. Add sugar (to the sweet level you want) and stir till the jam is thickened. Store in the refrigerator overnight.

Note: You can add in some cinnamon or glove to have some taste but I prefer the fresh pineapple taste.

Put flour, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl. Pour in melted butter until mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Beat in the egg yolk and add in cold water. Mix well to form a dough. Place in a plastic bag and chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Roll pastry out to 3/8” thickness on a tabletop and cut out rounds with a tart cutter.

Fill each piece of cut-out pastry with pineapple jam filling.

Glaze the tarts with beaten egg.

Preheat oven to 180 degree. Bake for 20 minutes or until the tarts turn golden brown.

With these ingredients you can make about 100 pieces of pineapple tarts. With the salted butter it makes a nice combination of sweet (pineapple jam) and salty (pastry) taste. I planned to give some to my in laws but we finished them within two days. My aunt made some again today and she put about 50 pieces aside to avoid us finishing them again. Now I think about it, I'm not sure if my in laws will appreciate them. I have learnt that some French do not mix salty and sweet in one dish, meaning that once they finish eating something salty (main dish), they will pass to something sweet (dessert) and they will not take any salty food later. Since there is a clear cut between salty and sweet food, I'm not sure if they could appreciate sweet and salty cookies.